"I've talked to so many people who said, 'He truly saved my
Stanley Campbell died Sunday; he was 90 years old.
Campbell was born August 16, 1925, to Jamaican parents in New York and bounced between the island and New York in his early life, according to his son Stanley. He followed an uncle to Miami as a teenager and stayed put, finding work on the docks as a union man. He soon met Yvonne, a hairdresser to an influential crowd in black Miami, and married her.
Campbell worked for unions his whole life, his son says, first on the docks, then as a mechanic and truck driver before snagging work with Miami-Dade County Public Schools as a shop steward. He and Yvonne raised their family near NW 62nd Street and 11th Avenue — "It's still the nicest house on the block," the younger Stanley says — and spent decades working at Highland Oaks Middle School until he retired. Later in life, he joined AA and spent 35 years as an active local member of the organization, Stanley says.
He was quietly charismatic and always full of surprises. "Just recently, he called me at work and started reciting poetry to me," says Stanley, the CEO of an analytics firm in Virginia. "I said, 'This is the union shop leader reciting poetry to me?'"
Stanley is survived by five sons and daughters-in-law, 18 grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren. A viewing for friends and family is scheduled for Friday, October 30, at 6 p.m. in the Chapel of the Church of the Incarnation (1835 NW 54th St., Miami). The funeral service is planned for October 31 at 11 a.m. in the same chapel.
